Alewife

Alewife
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Clupeiformes
Family: Clupeidae
Genus: Alosa
Subgenus: Pomolobus
Species: A. pseudoharengus
Binomial name
Alosa pseudoharengus
(A. Wilson, 1811)[1]
Synonyms
  • Clupea vernalis Mitchill, 1815

The alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) is an anadromous species of herring found in North America. It is one of the "typical" North American shads, attributed to the subgenus Pomolobus of the genus Alosa.[2] As an adult it is a marine species found in the northern West Atlantic Ocean, moving into estuaries before swimming upstream to breed in fresh water habitats, but some populations live entirely in fresh water. It is best known for its invasion of the Great Lakes by using the Welland Canal to bypass Niagara Falls. Here its population surged, peaking between the 1950s and 1980s to the detriment of many native species of fish. In an effort to control them biologically Pacific salmon were introduced, only partially successfully. As a marine fish, the alewife is a US National Marine Fisheries Service "Species of Concern".

Description

Alewives reach a maximum length of about 40 centimeters (16 in), but have an average length of about 25 centimeters (10 inches). The front of the body is deep and larger than other fish found in the same waters, and its common name is said to come from comparison with a corpulent female tavernkeeper ("ale-wife").[3]

Distribution

In southwestern Nova Scotia, it is called a kiack (or kyack).[4] In Atlantic Canada it is known as the gaspereau, from the Acadian French word "gasparot", first mentioned by Nicolas Denys. William Francis Ganong, New Brunswick biologist and historian, wrote:

Gaspereau, or Gasparot. Name of a common salt-water fish of Acadia (also called Alewife), first used, so far as I can find, by Denys in 1672. Nowhere can I find any clue to its origin. It seems not to be Indian.[5]

Acadians named two rivers after the fish, the Gaspereau River in Nova Scotia and the Gaspereaux River in New Brunswick.

In the Southeast US, when sold and used as bait, the fish is often referred to as "LY". There are anadromous and landlocked forms. The landlocked form is also called a sawbelly or mooneye (although this latter name is more commonly applied to Hiodon spp.).

Adult alewives are caught during their spring spawning migration upstream by being scooped out of shallow, constricted areas using large dip nets. They are the preferred bait for the spring lobster fishery in Maine, [6] and are eaten by humans, usually smoked.

In the North American Great Lakes

Alewives are perhaps best known for their invasion of the Great Lakes by using the Welland Canal to bypass Niagara Falls. Alewives colonized the Great Lakes and became abundant mostly in Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. They reached their peak abundance by the 1950s and 1980s. Alewives grew in number unchecked because of the lack of a top predator in the lakes (lake trout were essentially wiped out around the same time by overfishing and the invasion of the sea lamprey). For a time, alewives, which often exhibit seasonal die-offs, washed up in windrows on the shorelines of the Great Lakes. Various species of Pacific salmon (first coho, and later the Chinook salmon) were introduced as predators. Though marginally successful, this led to the development of a salmon/alewife fishery popular with many sport anglers

In spite of such biological control methods, alewives remain implicated in the decline of many native Great Lakes species. It is also a common predator of numerous native and non-native zooplankton taxa (Bythotrephes longimanus, Leptodiaptomus ashlandi, Leptodiaptomus minutus, Leptodiaptomus sicilis, Leptodora kindtii)

Conservation

Alewife populations have seen big declines throughout much of their range. Several threats have most likely contributed to their decline, including loss of habitat due to decreased access to spawning areas from the construction of dams and other impediments to migration, habitat degradation, fishing, and increased predation due to recovering striped bass populations.

In response to the declining trend for alewife, the states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Virginia, and North Carolina have instituted moratoriums on taking and possession.

The alewife is a US National Marine Fisheries Service Species of Concern. Species of Concern are those species about which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service, has some concerns regarding status and threats, but for which insufficient information is available to indicate a need to list the species under the US Endangered Species Act.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2006). "Alosa pseudoharengus" in FishBase. April 2006 version.
  2. ↑ Faria, R.; Weiss, S. & Alexandrino, P. (2006): A molecular phylogenetic perspective on the evolutionary history of Alosa spp. (Clupeidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 40(1): 298–304. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2006.02.008 (HTML abstract)
  3. ↑ Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition
  4. ↑ Nova Scotia Fisheries: Alewife Archived 2007-08-24 at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ↑ Ganong, W. F. (1910). "The Identity of the Animals and Plants Mentioned by the Early Voyagers to Eastern Canada and Newfoundland". Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada. Royal Society of Canada. III: 218. OL 7061668M. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
  6. ↑ Maine Dept of Marine Resources. "Maine River Herring Fact Sheet". Archived from the original on 2011-09-07.

References

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